Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can hreflang tags still work when the Alternate URL is 301 redirecting to a translated URL in Japanese Characters?
-
My organization has several international sites 4 of them of which have translated URLs in either Japanese, Traditional Chinese, German & Canadian French.
The hreflang tags we have set up on our United States look something like this:
But when you actually go to http://www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ you are 301 redirected to the translated URL version:
www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/
My question is, will Google still understand that the translated URL is the Alternate URL, or will this present errors?The hreflang tags are automated for each of our pages and would technically be hard to populate the hreflang with the translated URL version. However we could potentially make the hreflang something customized on a page level basis.
-
Hi there,
You should add in the hreflang annotation the final URL showing the content, not one that is just 301 redirecting to another. Are you seeing errors in the Google Search Console "International Targeting" report? If you see "no return tags" errors there for Japan, then means Google is not being able to identify them.
Thanks!
-
Redirects should be avoided. If the Japanese translation of your page is located at www.domain.co.jp/it-セキュリティ/ then please don't use www.domain.co.jp/it-security/ in your hreflang tag.
If it's hard to specify the correct URL in your page HTML, try providing Hreflang info in sitemaps instead.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Folders or no folders in url?
What's best for SEO: a folder or no folder? For example: https://domain.com/arizona-dentist/somecontent or just https://domain.com/somecontent. The website has 100+ pages with "dentist" within the content of the somecontent pages, as well as specific pages for /arizona-dentist/. Also, the breadcrumb for the somecontent page would appear something like follows: Arizona Dentist > Some Content ... you can find the somecontent page from the Arizona Dentist page. I didn't include folders in the path because I did not want the url to be too long. In terms of where it is showing up on google search results...it is within the top 3-4 on the first page when searching Arizona dentist come content. The website is pretty organized even without subfolders because it was made using Umbraco. I am wondering if using folders will increase the SEO ranking, or if it really doesn't and could hurt it if paths become too long; especially since it's not doing too bad in the search ranking right now. -Thanks in advance for any help.
Algorithm Updates | | bellezze0 -
Remove spam url errors from search console
My site was hacked some time ago. I've since then redesigned it and obviously removed all the injection spam. Now I see in search console that I'm getting hundreds of url errors (from the spam links that no longer work). How do I remove them from the search console. The only option I see is "mark as fixed", but obviously they are not "fixed", rather removed. I've already uploaded a new sitemap and fetched the site, as well as submitted a reconsideration request that has been approved.
Algorithm Updates | | rubennunez0 -
Meta Keyword Tags
What is the word on Meta Keyword Tags? Are they good to have, or bad? Our biggest competitor seems to have them.
Algorithm Updates | | Essential-Pest0 -
Should my canonical tags point to the category page or the filter result page?
Hi Moz, I'm working on an ecommerce site with categories, filter options, and sort options – teacherexpress.scholastic.com. Should I have canonical tags from all filter and sort options point to the category page like gap.com and llbean.com? or have all sort options point to the filtered page URL like kohls.com? I was under the impression that to use a canonical tag, the pages have to have the same content, meaning that Gap and L.L. Bean would be using canonical tags incorrectly. Using a filter changes the content, whereas using a sort option just changes the order. What would be the best way to deal with duplicate content for this site? Thanks for reading!
Algorithm Updates | | DA20130 -
Special Characters in Keywords
Do search engines consider keywords such as "1099 E-File Software" & "1099 "EFile Software" the same? Many of the keywords for my website will have a dash "-" when properly spelled out but there are many users who would simply omit it when spelling the word. Another example would be "W-2 Software" as opposed to "W2 Software".
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
301-Redirects, PageRank, Matt Cutts, Eric Enge & Barry Schwartz - Fact or Myth?
I've been trying to wrap my head around this for the last hour or so and thought it might make a good discussion. There's been a ton about this in the Q & A here, Eric Enge's interview with Matt Cutts from 2010 (http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml) said one thing and Barry Schwartz seemed to say another: http://searchengineland.com/google-pagerank-dilution-through-a-301-redirect-is-a-myth-149656 Is this all just semantics? Are all of these people really saying the same thing and have they been saying the same thing ever since 2010? Cyrus Shepherd shed a little light on things in this post when he said that it seemed people were confusing links and 301-redirects and viewing them as being the same things, when they really aren't. He wrote "here's a huge difference between redirecting a page and linking to a page." I think he is the only writer who is getting down to the heart of the matter. But I'm still in a fog. In this video from April, 2011, Matt Cutts states very clearly that "There is a little bit of pagerank that doesn't pass through a 301-redirect." continuing on to say that if this wasn't the case, then there would be a temptation to 301-redirect from one page to another instead of just linking. VIDEO - http://youtu.be/zW5UL3lzBOA So it seems to me, it is not a myth that 301-redirects result in loss of pagerank. In this video from February 2013, Matt Cutts states that "The amount of pagerank that dissipates through a 301 is currently identical to the amount of pagerank that dissipates through a link." VIDEO - http://youtu.be/Filv4pP-1nw Again, Matt Cutts is clearly stating that yes, a 301-redirect dissipates pagerank. Now for the "myth" part. Apparently the "myth" was about how much pagerank dissipates via a 301-redirect versus a link. Here's where my head starts to hurt: Does this mean that when Page A links to Page B it looks like this: A -----> ( reduces pagerank by about 15%)-------> B (inherits about 85% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page But say the "link" that exists on Page A is no longer good, but it's still the original URL, which, when clicked, now redirects to Page B via a URL rewrite (301 redirect)....based on what Matt Cutts said, does the pagerank scenario now look like this: A (with an old URL to Page B) ----- ( reduces pagerank by about 15%) -------> URL rewrite (301 redirect) - Reduces pagerank by another 15% --------> B (inherits about 72% of Page A's pagerank if no other links are on the page) Forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, so not sure if that 72% is right? It seems to me, from what Matt is saying, the only way to avoid this scenario would be to make sure that Page A was updated with the new URL, thereby avoiding the 301 rewrite? I recently had to re-write 18 product page URLs on a site and do 301 redirects. This was brought about by our hosting company initiating rules in the back end that broke all of our custom URLs. The redirects were to exactly the same product pages (so, highly relevant). PageRank tanked on all 18 of them, hard. Perhaps this is why I am diving into this question more deeply. I am really interested to hear your point of view
Algorithm Updates | | danatanseo0 -
Vanity URL's and http codes
We have a vanity URL that as recommended is using 301 http code, however it has been discovered the destination URL needs to be updated which creates a problem since most browsers and search engines cache 301 redirects. Is there a good way to figure out when a vanity should be a 301 vs 302/307? If all vanity URL's should use 301, what is the proper way of updating the destination URL? Is it a good rule of thumb that if the vanity URL is only going to be temporary and down the road could have a new destination URL to use 302, and all others 301? Cheers,
Algorithm Updates | | Shawn_Huber0
